ESF vs international school, especially Kennedy

[HKChat]

Hi, I'm a happy Peak Mum! We moved to HK two years ago and everyone has been really welcoming. The teaching has been great, the other parents are friendly and there's a lovely school spirit.

I know some Mums who have been to look at Harrow but this seems to be looking ahead in preparation for secondary school or as an alternative to an overseas boarding school.

 

[alicia_liu_100]

Is ESF better or International School

All I could say is I would prefer ESF more than International Schools. ESF has support from England and has many schools to go to. The ESF chairman is also very responsible. There are many ESF schools. Like Kowloon Junior School, Discovery College, Shatin Junior School, Glenealy School, Discovery Bay International School, Clear Water Bay School and more. These ESF schools support each other. That is the really good advantage about ESF schools.
There are also many tournaments such as Football Tournaments, Mixed Netball Tournament that has happened recently and Rugby Tournaments. But, the disadvantages are that normally, ESF schools are smaller than International Schools. From my perspective, I would prefer ESF schools naturally because my daughter attends Kowloon Junior Schools(KJS)

 

[testuser]

>> I would prefer ESF more than International Schools

ESF is an "international" school. It certainly does not follow a local curriculum.

>> These ESF schools support each other.

I call BS on that. When our son was at Kennedy, I was told point blank from one of the senior staffers at the center that "Kennedy" was learning and had a long way to go in its PYP implementation.

They certainly do not share or support each other as there is very little consistency in the outputs of the various schools. There is no ESF Center mandated curriculum in effect and certainly if this was a single system teachers could be transfered and moved easily between schools, as would teaching materials etc etc...

May be you have a better experience at KJS, but I would certainly not judge all ESF schools as being the same.

>> ESF schools are smaller than International Schools

Eh? West Island is smaller than say, Hong Kong Academy?

>> There are also many tournaments such as Football Tournaments, Mixed Netball Tournament that has happened recently and Rugby Tournaments.

Did you notice that the ESF teams are competing with other international school teams and club teams at many of these other tournaments?

Don't get me wrong - there are some brilliant schools with the ESF system, there are some brilliant educators in that system and there are a whole load of good students being taught by those teachers. However this is not unique to the ESF.

I'm also sorry to say this that the ESF system is far too large and bureaucratic and sub-standard work and people just go un-noticed as the center and others involved ( so called independent board members who are frequently related to ESF employees for example) rarely ever want to rock the boat.

The above was based on my experience as a Kennedy parent.

If you were to ask me about the ESF based on my experience as a Glenealy parent - my opinion would be extremely high and I'd be recommending the ESF to everyone - based solely on what I've seen at Glenealy and making the wrong assumption that all schools at the ESF are held to the same standards.

 

[MommyTo3]

Shri, did you change schools in the end? Happier now?

 

[testuser]

Yes, we changed schools and are at Glenealy.

Extremely happy - night and day difference in attitudes, community, teachers and management. Our son is enjoying Y6 and thriving...

We've even been able to meet with our teacher without having our meetings monitored and mediated by a third party.

 

[MommyTo3]

That's excellent news. We're looking into moving too, but don't want to leave our catchment ... too happy with our school too! Glad it worked out!

Yes, we changed schools and are at Glenealy.

Extremely happy - night and day difference in attitudes, community, teachers and management. Our son is enjoying Y6 and thriving...

We've even been able to meet with our teacher without having our meetings monitored and mediated by a third party.

 

[Jomama1]

All I could say is I would prefer ESF more than International Schools. From my perspective, I would prefer ESF schools naturally because my daughter attends Kowloon Junior Schools(KJS)

Alicia, may I ask you more about KJS? (since my son might be going to ESF Tsing Yi kindergarten which leads to KJS) Is KJS academically solid? How is school life? My son loves sports so i wonder if they have a good soccer team. I notice the demographic is mainly Asian (no offense intended since my son is ethnically Chinese as well), so i wonder what the culture is like since i myself was brought up in Canada and wish a similar school life for him.

 

[cazach]

Peak School is a brilliant school and we have been very happy with the education provided to our 2 children. The pastoral care at Peak is particularly good. Some Peak families chose Harrow last year when their year 6 children were moving to secondary, just as parents at many other schools chose Harrow. after year 6 it is entirely normal for kids to move
In different directions, but many Peak kids also moved to Island school. Peak has an excellent reputation but I can only speak as a Peak parent. I am not qualified to comment on other ESF schools as I have no personal experience of them.

 

[kayleelu]

hi shri, will you be able to share publicly or privately more about kennedy school. from the last two weeks interaction and preliminary observation that the admission staff has lots of bags on their shoulder.

i have been calling parents for reference, many gave excellent comments and that my kids will be happy to be there. can i deduce that the teachers are excellent and they teach with hearts, while the administrators are just a bunch of insecure souls?

 

[testuser]

We moved away from Kennedy a couple of years ago. Primarily due to issues which can all be traced back to the principal. The ESF center and the school board chairperson were pretty much ineffective.

We made the mistake of asking them for the curriculum, ask them what assessment criteria... these were woefully missing when we were around. At that time, pretty much each ESF school was operating independently and we saw quite a difference between what was being taught in our son's class vs other ESF schools.

Cannot comment about parents or teachers anymore as we're not involved and really do not care about that school any more.